So I was continuing my Grey’s Anatomy marathon this morning and then during Bailey’s wedding (yeah, I know, I have a lot to go through since this happened like two years ago), they served mac-and-cheese cupcakes. I thought, Oh yeah, I should see if I could make that. Shouldn’t be too hard. Just prepare small portions of macaroni (cooked, probably) and lots of cheese inside each cupcake cup and bake them. And then one of the guests suggested other types of cupcakes that could be made from common dinner items like lasagna and mashed potatoes. I can definitely see the lasagna idea, but not very confident about the mashed potatoes. I mean, I suppose you could, but I’m not really seeing how that’d work because you don’t really bake mashed potatoes. I don’t know, maybe it’s very delicious and I’m just not being very imaginative here. I’m sure there’s a recipe for it out there though.
It really did get me thinking though: what else could be made into cupcakes? You see this all the time in the short cooking clips and Tasty also has a few dinner cupcakes. I think the most recent one I saw was a hot dog cupcake.
FYI, I just learned something: I’ve always struggled with finding my drafts on the computer on WordPress. On the phone and tablet, it’s easy since they have a completely separate tab for drafts when you click on “posts”. I looked it up and even wanted to ask WordPress how to access drafts since the Drafts list only SOMETIMES shows up on the right-hand side when I look at my posts list. The problem with that was they charge you even to ask questions, so it just doesn’t seem fair. I don’t know if this is the official way that those of us Pressers who knew how to do it initially, do it, but I clicked on “Add Blog Posts” and it sends me to a brand new note, but on the upper left-hand corner right next to the “back” button is “Drafts” and then a number right next to it. I always found it weird that I had to create a new post in order to access drafts, which is why I never did it until today, but hey, at least it gets me to the list of unpublished posts.
That was just to let you guys know, if you didn’t already. It was a big struggle with me, which is why it was worth bringing up, in case someone else was wondering how. I still don’t understand why the list only sometimes shows up, but that doesn’t matter now. I can access my drafts without fail.
Anyways, there was no cooking today, but I have some notes that I learned from class. Just to let you know though, I’m not completely confident that I haven’t mentioned the first couple points before because I remember writing something down, just not sure about the specifics. Plus, I don’t recall typing any of these out, so I’ll just bring them up again:
- I sliced my finger in their kitchen a while ago, but I took care of it myself: cleaned up the wound, put on a Band-aid and cot (AKA the finger condom), and sanitized the knife and board, as well as throwing out the food I was working on. My question is, at what point during the healing process is it okay to work in the kitchen without the bandage? Obviously, if there is still blood visible, dry or not, keep it on, but is it still safe to work once you know it can’t bleed anymore even if you can still see the cut? Also, apparently, I was supposed to tell a professor so we could file an accident report, even if it’s small enough to be a paper cut.
- My Knife Skills professor, who is this adorable little Chinese lady who looks exactly like my own grandmother, wanted us to compost carrot peels because she wanted to make kimchi. Coming from a Korean family, kimchi is a part of our daily meals and we buy ours from the Korean market so there’s still some authenticity, if there is any question about it. I’ve just never really heard of carrots being in kimchi. I mean, I suppose it could be her specific variation or the Chinese variation, but it was a new thing to me. Just thought I’d put that out there.
- Speaking of compost, my school is all about being green. In fact, they specifically don’t have pamphlets or brochures on their program because they want to avoid printing. (At first I thought it was nice, but even my culinary history professor who is a vegan and admittedly very against printing, needed us to print out our assignments so she could have them in her hand even though we can just email her questions. I don’t know whose rules those are, man.) Oh, the COMPOST thing: they have the same attitude about the food we use and the key to avoiding waste is in how we cut. That’s why I think it’s fitting that we have that cute grandma to teach us how to use most of the fruits and vegetables we cut. She is also a vegan, so she cares a lot about waste and uses up all the edible portions of ingredients. I personally still have to learn how to “square it off”, which is basically turning it into a rectangle. For example, potatoes look like butter once you square them off. I’m a very lazy squarer though, so my ingredients tend to be uneven or slightly too large. Then once I cut off a teeny strip, it turns out to be too small, so I can’t win. It helps to have the ruler, which shows how big the squares need to be and how long the rectangles should be. I’m just not practicing, but that’s because I’m not too worried about it.
- While we can’t have phones or radios in the kitchen, I can’t pass the time with music unless I’m singing or humming. Logically, that is why I’ve decided to do so in the kitchen while we’re cooking. That way, not only does time pass, but everyone can hear my beautiful singing. Just kidding–it’s just so it feels less like something I have to do and becomes more enjoyable.
- For ten minutes at the beginning of every Knife Skills class, we must sharpen our knives. We have to hone with the steel and whetstone. (Ooh! Sample lyric right there! I think I mentioned in my first entry about culinary class, that I’ve considered writing a musical about cooking, much like the new Broadway musical Waitress is about baking.) I used the steel to sharpen both the house knife and my own chef’s knife. The sound is substantially different. For one, the new knife makes this nice little “Shwing!” sound against the steel. The sound just…follows through, which is the best way I can put it. This is something you have to experience to learn and understand what I mean.
Well, I’ve got a quiz tomorrow, so I should go. I’m just going to read through the material, but I feel like cooking school tests are easy. At first, they want to quiz you on the basics of sanitation and safety, which is really just common sense. I’m guessing that tomorrow, it’s going to be more about the specifics of recipes, but the first quiz was literally one page, one side. I don’t want to fail, of course, but I don’t want to stress out either. The biggest part of passing each class is attendance and participation, which makes sense if the class works in the kitchen. That’s the only place you’ll really learn: through hands-on experience, which has always been my philosophy anyway, making this an even more perfect career for me.
Break an egg!
Chef's Delight 